Università Roma Tre

The course focuses on the most important aspects that security has assumed in the international system since the end of the Second World War. In adopting a historical approach, it intends to offer the students a general survey and understanding of a process that becomes the effect and the producer of frames of political action. The end of the Second World War has been selected as the starting point of analysis, mainly because it marked the beginning of the era of security studies in the United States and the Western world. Indeed, that field of studies developed after the failure of the attempt made at that time to establish an effective collective security within the United Nations. That failure coincided with the beginning of the nuclear era, which, in turn, dominated the Cold War. The time period characterized by bipolar confrontation represents a good deal of the focus of the course because it allows to examine the specific dynamics of that confrontation and the related developments concerning nuclear deterrence and proliferation. Still, in spite of the Cold War demise, the security discourse is still looming large in the contemporary international system, not only for the risk of nuclear proliferation, which seems growing after the end of the Cold War, but also because of the so-called securitization of many international issues, like environment, migration and access to resources. The course, therefore, aims at helping the students historicize the notion of international security and familiarize them with the main components of the contemporary international security agenda.
- Part I: (first 5-6 weeks) After having introduced the meaning of security studies in the United States and the Western world, a good deal of attention is devoted to understanding the failure of the attempt made immediately after the second World War to establish an effective collective security within the United Nations, and its later evolution. Then, the focus shifts on the hallmarks and meaning of international security in the bipolar world, when military conflicts were bound to remain limited, as more or less limited was the room for maneuvering that most of the states inside and outside of the principal military alliances might reasonably expect to gain. Inter alia, Western Alliance is examined also to emphasize that, because of the threat of a nuclear holocaust, it has gradually turned out to be the venue for devising a shared security agenda and, through that, a curtailed version of collective security. The era of bipolar confrontation is also examined from the standpoint of the development of nuclear deterrence and proliferation as the two sides of the (nuclear-tinged) security coin

- Part II: (second 5-6 weeks) The second part of the course concentrates on some of the most relevant challenges to international security characterizing the post-Cold War world, wherein globalization has been coexisting with a growing and widespread securitization of a series of international and transnational matters. Through the adoption of a historical perspective, the students are encouraged to reflect on and discuss about the transformation that the concept of international security has undergone over the last decades. Thus, class discussions are organized with the purpose of favoring a deeper analysis and debate on the various issues singled out as significant, and each student is required to present a short paper on one of those issues, using the bibliographical material suggested or provided by the professor

REQUIRED READINGS:

- Roland Dannreuther, International Security. The Contemporary Agenda, Second Edition, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2013
- Mark Mazower, Governing the World. The History of an Idea, Penguin Books, 2012 – pp. 191-342


For the in class discussions, students will have to read the following essays:

- David A. Baldwin, “The Concept of Security”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 23, n. 1, (January 1997), pp. 5-26
- Christopher Daase, “National, Societal, and Human Security: On the Transformation of Political Language”, Historical Social Research, Vol. 35, n. 4, (134), 2010, pp. 22-37
- Avery Goldstein, “Discounting the Free Ride: Alliances and Security in the Postwar World”, International Organization, Vol. 49, n. 1, (Winter 1995), pp. 39-71
- Michael MccGwire, “Deterrence: The Problem- Not the Solution”, International Affairs, Vol. 62, n. 1, (Winter, 1985-1986), pp. 55-70
- Scott D. Sagan, “The Perils of Proliferation: Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons”, International Security, Vol. 18, n. 4, (Spring 1994), pp. 66-107
- Scott M. Thomas, “A Globalized God. Religion’s Growing Influence in International Politics”, Foreign Affairs, Vol 89, n. 6, Nov-Dec 2010, pp. 93-101
- Kenneth Waltz, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Better”, Adelphi Paper n. 171, IISS, 1981